Louise Martens says she’s angered and depressed by the proposed class-action settlement that would give her and 1,204 other cancer patients treated with diluted chemotherapy drugs as little as $1,500 each.

“To have our trust so violated, I don’t know what the settlement should be, but $1,500 is like a slap in the face,” said the local breast cancer survivor, who’s not alone in her opinion that the potential payout to the cancer patients is meagre.

Another breast cancer patient, Vera Barker, said that “nobody I know of is happy with the amount at all.”

Martens said Tuesday she’s in the process of writing a notice of objection to the $2.375-million settlement, which goes before a Windsor judge on Jan. 10 for approval. And she’s hoping other victims of the diluted chemo scandal do the same. (Another option is to opt out of the class action, hire a lawyer and sue on your own.)

She said $1,500 doesn’t come close to compensating them for the anxiety and worry they’ve suffered, wondering if their cancers would come back.

“All of this is an outrage,” Martens said. She said she understands that their lawyers were handcuffed by an expert’s conclusion that the impact on patients was small, and that no expert was willing to stand up and say people died as a result. But she added the settlement doesn’t take into account the psychological damage.

“I just don’t know what to believe anymore from them,” she said, referring to the health-care system.

Another breast cancer patient, Marlene Roy, 63, was hoping the settlement would provide her with a little nest egg in case her cancer comes back. She recently lost her job. If other patients write objections, she might, too, she said.

“I was kind of hoping for a bit more, because we did go through a lot.”

In announcing the proposed settlement last week, prominent Windsor lawyer Harvey Strosberg stated: “This is not a good settlement. Given the circumstances, this is an excellent settlement.”

His colleague Sharon Strosberg declined an interview with the Star Tuesday, saying she stands by her earlier comments. “We have an upcoming motion for settlement approval and I am hesitant to argue the merits of that motion in the media,” she wrote in an email.

But she said that each of the class members she’s spoken to “understands the reason for the settlement, given the challenges that we face in this case.”

The deadline to opt out is Dec. 7. The judge will weigh the objections along with the submissions from the lawyers and decide if the settlement is fair and reasonable, she wrote. “The court must either accept or reject the settlement. If the case does not settle, we will consider next steps at that time.”

Seventy-one of the 290 cancer patients who received the diluted drugs at Windsor Regional Hospital have died, though there has been no determination that they were to blame in any of the cases. After the scandal broke, the Ontario government assigned expert Jake Thiessen to look into the circumstances. He concluded that there was “no evidence of any malicious or deliberate drug-sparing dilution” by Marchese Hospital Solutions, the firm that prepared the bags of chemo drugs Cyclophosphamide or Gemcitabine.

He went on to say the drugs were diluted no more than 10 and seven per cent, respectively, and that the impact on patients, given the fact they were often combined with other cancer-killing drugs, was small.

But a Toronto lawyer who’s been following the case said the settlement amount, divided among the “class members” just seems too small, considering what these patients went through. Although it’s hard to quantify, there’s probably some impact, said Jonathan Mesiano-Crookston from the firm Goldman Hine.

“I know there are difficulties with the case, but for every individual who’s going to receive a cheque, it seems like it should be a larger amount,” he said.

“If I were an individual plaintiff I’d probably be thinking I could do better on my own, because it does seem like a small number.”

The hospitals as well as Medbuy, a consortium set up by hospitals to buy products in higher volumes, were added to the lawsuit recently. If the settlement’s approved, Medbuy, on behalf of itself and the hospitals, will pay half the settlement, with Mezentco paying the other half.

The victims will get $1.8 million of the $2.375 million. If no patient opts out, they’d each get about $1,500. The Ontario and New Brunswick health ministries will share $100,000 to pay for the extra health costs associated with the diluted drugs scare, while $75,000 will go toward administrative costs. The remaining $400,000 will go to the lawyers.

Barker, 64, said she doesn’t believe the settlement. “But it’s kind of like you’re caught between a rock and a hard place.” She doesn’t have the money to opt out and hire a lawyer, and she’s worried that if a lot of patients object, the settlement will be tossed and they’ll end up with nothing.

Like Martens, she called the $1,500 a slap in the face, considering the anxiety this has caused. To suffer through very bad side-effects and then learn the drugs were diluted was devastating, she said.

“It’s horrible, just going through all that.… I would have liked a chance to appear in court to say those things.”

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